


Under Every Name and Costume Is an Actor Trying to Survive

by AntagonizedPenguin



Series: How Best to Use a Sword [27]
Category: Original Work
Genre: A series of bad decisions that make up a life, A tale of a prodigy who keeps getting screwed over by life, Acting, Character Death, M/M, Minor Violence, Name Changes, implied underage sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 16:33:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15223235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntagonizedPenguin/pseuds/AntagonizedPenguin
Summary: Names are like costumes, he learned that early. They can be put on and off whenever it's necessary and a new one created. Makes life easier, knowing that.Makes it easier to run away from your mistakes.





	Under Every Name and Costume Is an Actor Trying to Survive

**Author's Note:**

> Another backstory one-off that I've been looking forward to for a long time! There's some stuff in here that I think readers of the series will find very interesting, but the story can be enjoyed on its own merits too. Enjoy!

Names, Winston learned when he was young, were just costumes. They could be put on or taken off when one needed to be someone else. People wanted to believe what was in front of them, so if someone was dressed up like a king they would believe that person was a king, and if someone told them a name, they would believe that name. 

It was why actors existed, to let people believe things they normally wouldn’t. Winston could be a prince one day and a scullion the next, or a stablehand at the beginning of a play and a wolf at the end. Usually he was an errand boy, since most plays didn’t call for a part for someone his age, but he liked acting, and he always asked if he could go on the stage at least for a few lines. 

Especially when mom was on the stage. Winston liked acting with his mom. They did it all the time anyway, so they were good together. He didn’t have any problem on the stage pretending that she was the weaver’s daughter or the handmaid or the bandit queen to his cow, pageboy or cupholder. They acted together all the time. Sometimes they were Winona and Winston, sometimes Giselle and Grant, Hope and Harry, just costumes that they wore when mom decided it was time to move on to a new troupe of actors. 

At this point, Winston was old enough to realize that the sudden changes in their background cast always came whenever mom came into a lot of money very quickly. 

They’d been with this troupe for almost two months, now. Not a very long time, but one night mom came into their little tent while he was mending a tear in one of her costumes, and Winston looked up at her and knew what was coming. “Winston, honey, are you almost done that?” she asked, opening up her clothes chest and carefully putting inside the bundled dress she’d been holding. 

“Yes.” Winston was good at sewing. Nobody could even tell that the costumes had ever had holes when he was finished with them. 

“Good, make sure you pack everything away properly when you’re finished. We’re leaving in the morning.”

She didn’t mean the troupe—they were staying camped here near Teown’s Sound for another few weeks. She also didn’t mean morning in the way most people did. Morning for them started long before the sun was up. “Sure thing, mom,” Winston promised. “Do you need help packing?”

“No, I’ll put everything together. You just make sure your things are in order.” She paused in putting things away in the chest, regarded him. “You’ve gotten a lot bigger, haven’t you? You’re old enough that you don’t need your old mom to help you pack, right?”

“Nope, I’ve got it, mom.” Winston smiled. He was old enough to do that. “Do you know what our names will be tomorrow?”

She smiled at him. “Not yet, dear. I’ll let you know when we wake up.”

“Okay.” It didn’t really matter. Names were just costumes, and she was always mom. 

\---

The only time Alexander ever questioned it was two years after that. 

They’d been with this circus for a while, eight months almost. Alexander liked it here; he’d picked his own name for the first time and he and his mom got to act a lot, but he was also an acrobat on the side, something he’d developed a surprising skill for. 

One of circus’s acrobats had seen talent in him early on and suggested Alexander take it up. His name was Manuel and he’d been very patient in teaching Alexander all kinds of tumbling, tightrope walking, tricks and flips and cartwheels and how to walk on his hands for hours. He was really good at it. He and his two brothers were here in the circus saving up money to strike out on their own someday, put on shows just by themselves. 

Manuel had also shown Alexander how to kiss, and how things worked when clothes started to come off. Alexander wasn’t sure which set of skills he valued more, but he and Manuel had talked more than once about how maybe when Manuel and his brothers struck out, they’d take Alexander with them. 

Alexander’s condition was that his mother come with them, and Manuel had said that was a good idea. He wasn’t sure how to suggest it to her, though. She knew about him and Manuel, because Alexander was old enough to have sex but not experienced enough not to be obvious about it, and he didn’t think she liked Manuel much. 

But they’d be happier like that, he knew it. They wouldn’t need to run and steal anymore, and they could keep the same names, and have normal lives like everyone else. They’d be happier. Alexander knew it. 

Which is why when he came to their tent one night after staying with Manuel for a while and saw his mom packing, he just shook his head. “N-no…”

She looked up at him, just briefly, wrapping a dress around a bag of coins. “We’re going to be leaving in the morning, Alexander,” mom said. “Make sure your things are packed.” 

“No,” Alexander said, shaking his head again. “Mom, no. We…we can stay here…”

“No, we can’t.” 

“B-but…I’m not ready to…”

Mom sighed, stood up straight, and took Alexander’s face in her hands. “I know. I know you like Manuel. But there will be other boys, Alexander, trust me.” 

Alexander didn’t want there to be other boys. He wanted to stay here. He wanted to go with Manuel and his brothers and start their own performing show. “We don’t have to go!” he said to his mom, knowing he could convince her. “Manuel and them are going to go on their own, they’re going to start their own show—and they said we could go with them! We can…”

“No,” Alexander’s mother said, looking him in the eye. “We can’t. That’s not the kind of life we have, Alexander. It just isn’t.”

“I…”

“Now get your things.”

“I hate you,” Alexander whispered, and he turned and ran from the tent before she could say anything else. 

She didn’t understand. She didn’t get it. She was so worried about herself, about what she wanted, that she couldn’t see what would make Alexander happy. All he wanted was a normal life, one where he could live with one name, tumble with Manuel and just be happy. Why didn’t she, why didn’t she understand!

She would just leave without him. He’d stay here. He was better off. They were all better off. 

Alexander ran, covering his eyes, knowing the way to Manuel’s tent. He’d explain everything there. He’d tell Manuel, and they’d go off together and be happy. Alexander was old enough to make his own decisions. 

“We’re not really going to have to spend our whole lives living with that idiot, are we?”

Alexander stopped. That was Manuel’s brother’s voice. “Nah, not for much longer,” Manuel said. 

Who were they talking about?

“Thank God,” Manuel’s other brother said. “Don’t know much longer I can stand to see him clinging to you all the time.” 

“He’s not that bad.” 

“He’s a pain. You have shitty taste, Manuel.” 

They were talking about him, Alexander realized. Manuel’s brothers had always seemed friendly before. Did…did they not like him?

“Don’t be a jerk,” Manuel said, and Alexander smiled, waiting outside the tent. Manuel would defend him. “He’s cute enough. He’s getting better in bed. And he’ll help us get out on our own, pool his money with ours. We’ll ditch him after that, but be nice to him until then, for God’s sake.”

Alexander…was struck. That…was that what Manuel really thought of him? 

Manuel’s brother laughed. “Cold.”

“Oh, whatever. The world’s full of cute boys who can suck dick. Not my fault if the one I have is too stupid to realize that’s all he’s for.” 

They were coming closer to the tentflap, coming out. Alexander hastily moved away, around the side. The three of them emerged, laughing with each other as they headed off somewhere. 

Tears tracked down Alexander’s face. He’d thought…he’d thought Manuel really cared about him. He’d thought…

Twenty minutes later he was back in his tent, tears dried but eyes still red, and he dumped the big bag of coins that Manuel and his brothers had spent their lives collecting at his mother’s feet. “I’ll be ready to go in a few hours,” he muttered. 

“Oh, son,” mom said, wrapping Alexander into an unexpected hug. “I’m sorry.” 

Shocked, Alexander didn’t hug her back. He’d expected her to be angry. “You…you knew.” 

“Yes, I did.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

A sigh. “Because I thought you deserved a chance to be happy, even if only for a little while. I should have told you.” 

“It’s okay,” Alexander whispered, bringing his arms up to hug her back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that, before. I love you, mom.” 

“I love you too, my dear, wonderful son.” 

“When we leave…will you pick my name for me again?” Alexander asked, letting himself feel better from being held. 

“Of course I will, son. I’m your mother, remember?”

Alexander nodded, and the two of them hugged for a few minutes more before starting to pack up. And Alexander never questioned their names again. 

\---

A year later, Charles started to smell things. 

Not that he hadn’t been able to smell things before, but suddenly one morning he’d woken up and there’d been a funny scent in his nose, and it had faded and grown stronger and waxed and waned throughout the day, but it had never gone completely away. 

Nobody else in the little theatre they were living in could smell anything, he’d asked. He’d asked his mom, he’d asked the other actors, he’d asked the stagehands, everyone. The smell had followed him around all day, when he’d been reading his lines, when he’d been practicing his stunts—he was getting really good at those—and when he’d been at the dance practice that his mother was making him do. He was good at that too, but he didn’t like it as much as tumbling, or fighting, which he’d also started to teach himself. 

The smell that never faded wasn’t a real smell, there wasn’t really anything there. And Charles got used to it, until he barely noticed it at all over the next few days. 

But it was still there, and the more he thought about it, the more that Charles realized that he wasn’t really smelling anything but feeling it, feeling it in a way that his body didn’t understand or know how to handle, and so his brain was telling him it was a smell. 

So after that night’s performance—they’d gotten a standing ovation and Charles liked to think that his death scene had played a part in that—he snuck back to his little room early and decided to find out what it was he was feeling. 

He’d shuttered the lamp, closed his eyes, sat down, and focused on what he could feel, and after about an hour, he’d found it. A…something, something that he could touch, something that he could move. Something that broke the lamp when he tried to make it move too hard. 

But Charles didn’t care by that point, because he’d found something amazing. 

And when his mom knocked on his door, entering right after, she saw him like that. “Charles? You wandered off and I was worried…oh, dear.” 

Charles looked up at his mother, the little ball of fire that he’d managed to make suspended between his hands. “The next place we go,” he said, really tired even though he’d only been sitting here. “We should ask if they need a magician.” 

\---

“They’re still chasing us…”

“I know, Huey,” mom panted, tugging his hand to run faster, even though he was the one slowing down for her. She was breathing hard, the pack she had on weighing her down. 

The actors who they’d been with here in Pelican Bay had noticed the theft that always followed Huey and his mom’s sudden departures, but they’d noticed it too early, and now the guard was chasing them, and Huey didn’t think they could get away. “Mom…we have to give it back.”

Mom nodded, sliding the pack off her back. “Okay. It’s not worth it. Let’s run.” 

They left their bags there, Huey keeping his because it only had his clothes and his lone spellbook in it, the one he’d found second-hand in a market in Hawk’s Roost. He’d taught himself a good amount of magic by now, and thought he had a pretty good grasp on it. 

They ran a little faster now, leaving the loot behind, which hurt Huey almost as much as it must hurt his mom. They’d both worked hard for that. But it wasn’t worth their freedom, so they ran without it. 

But the guards kept chasing them, well past where they should have, well past the bag that they’d left behind. “Mom…”

“Can you do something that will distract them, Huey?”

Huey nodded. “Run ahead, I’ll catch up.” He was a faster runner than she was anyway. 

“No. I’m not leaving you behind, son.” Mom stopped behind him, watching Huey. He frowned, but took a wide stance, waiting a second as he watched the guards get closer. “Don’t kill anyone if you can avoid it.”

“I know.” They stole and lied all the time, but they never hurt anyone. They never killed anyone. Hands up, Huey went through the motions of a spell he’d memorized but only used once. 

“Hands up!” the guards yelled as they got closer. “Don’t move.” 

“Fuck you,” Huey muttered, bringing together the powers that represented Water and Fire, and creating an explosion between them and the guards, steam filling the air and clouding all their vision. Guards screamed and fell over, and Huey sighed. He hadn’t killed any of them. It was fine. It was.

A snap, and out from the steam came a bolt from a crossbow. It missed Huey by a mile. Someone had obviously just shot at random, the confusing making him stupid and…

Mom shouted, and Huey turned. And he saw her hit the ground, bleeding from her chest where she’d been hit. 

And Huey didn’t think of anything but fire. “Mom!” He raced to her side, crouched down. She was bleeding, she was bleeding so much. 

“Huey…run…”

“No. No, I’m not…I’m not…” 

Fire. His spellbook said that fire was the most dangerous, the most volatile of the powers that he could use, and that he had to be careful. But Huey didn’t want to be careful right now and he used it full force, igniting the air around him and throwing it at the guards through the steam, and they screamed. And they screamed, and shouted and yelled, and everything was on fire and that was the way Huey wanted it because his mom was bleeding to death right in front of him and now she was on fire too and everything was on fire and Huey tried to put it out, mom was screaming, she was dying too, he was killing her, mom was going to die because of him, how did Huey make the fire _stop_ …

\---

He woke up chained to a wall in a dark room with glowing letters everywhere. Magic, he recognized it, and he couldn’t touch his own. He didn’t try more than once, and he didn’t try to get out of the chain. It didn’t matter. He remembered. His mom was dead, he’d killed her. He should have died too, but he hadn’t. 

Why hadn’t he died?

He wondered if maybe it had something to do with the throbbing in his head. 

How long he sat there he didn’t know. Someone fed him, but he didn’t eat. Then two voices were outside the door, and he only barely listened. 

“It’s hardly the lad’s fault. He can’t control his powers—this is what happens when wizards aren’t properly trained.” 

“Yeah, well, that not properly trained wizard killed eighteen people. You want to train him so he can kill more next time?” 

“I want to train him so that he doesn’t kill anyone next time. The boy can’t help it that his mother was a criminal. With proper guidance, he won’t grow up to be one and the world will be better for it.” 

“Releasing him to you is going to cause a big headache for us. There are going to need to be probations in place…”

He didn’t hear the rest, they moved on past him. He didn’t care anyway. It sounded like they were talking about him, and it didn’t matter. 

Until it did. A few hours, a few days later, the door to his cell creaked open, and a short man in a tight-fitting outfit strode in, followed by a guard who unlocked his manacles. “Come with me, boy.” 

“No.” He didn’t want to come with anyone. He wanted to stay here until he died. 

“My name is Vincent. What’s yours?”

“Don’t have one.” 

“I find that unlikely, Huey. I’m terribly sorry for what happened to you. If I’d found you sooner I could have helped you gain mastery over your power so that such a terrible accident didn’t occur.”

Huey had killed his mother. He didn’t want to be Huey anymore. But who was he supposed to be now?

He thought for a second. “You’re a wizard.” 

“That’s correct, and I’m going to take you on as my apprentice. I will teach you how to use your power properly so that such an accident never happens again,” Vincent the wizard told him. 

But he just shook his head. “I don’t want it. I don’t want to be a wizard. I killed my mother.” 

“Whether you want the power or not, you already have it. And if you don’t accept my tutelage, you’ll be hung for murder.” 

“Fine. I’ll hang then.” That was better. It was better that way. 

“Huey…”

“That’s not my name.” 

Vincent blinked. “What is your name, then?”

“Told you, I don’t have one.” 

“I see. Well, I shall need something to call you, lad.” 

“I’m not coming with you.” 

“Don’t misunderstand, I’m not giving you a choice. Would your mother really want you to die? Do you really think that would make her happy?” 

“Nothing would make her happy,” he said, feeling a flash of anger. At least he was feeling something. “She’s dead.” 

“That’s right. And you can prevent anyone else from dying because of your power. You can help people with it. You can atone. You can become a useful member of society instead of a criminal.” Vincent waved a hand, turned to leave the cell. “Or you can rot here and die. It’s up to you.” 

He wanted to rot and die. But, but. 

That was the easy way out. Just dying, that was easy. And if he did that, nobody would remember his mother as anything but a criminal, and he didn’t like that. They wouldn’t remember her smile, or her laugh or how much she’d loved her only son. They wouldn’t remember. 

So he stood up, legs protesting, and followed Vincent out of the cell. Vincent smiled at him, waved him down a hallway. “Now. Your name?”

He thought about it for a second. He needed one, a new one. A new costume. “Um. Justin.” 

Vincent nodded. “Very well, Justin. Come. I’ll take you home.”

\---

“So there’s this theory out there that time is actually just a perception that we all share rather than something that’s actually out there in the world, which doesn’t make sense until you kind of think about it for a bit, right? Because if you think about it, it’s not like you can reach out and touch time or count it or weigh it and I mean we can measure it, but only with instruments that we made up to measure it because we’d decided it was out there because of this perception that we all have.”

“Uh-huh,” Justin muttered, not looking up from the spellbook he was reading, one hand fiddling with the fifth element. It was a weird element, not really playing by the same rules as the other four, and figuring it out was essential to all high-level wizardry. 

“And I think that raises a really interesting set of questions about what perception is, then. Because if we’re all perceiving the same thing, that’s not supposed to be possible because nothing’s objective and we’re all filtering it through our own minds, so either time is really out there—which it probably isn’t—or there’s sort of like, a shared consciousness? Like there are things that just, as humans, we all get, like that are intrinsic to our species.” 

“Yeah.” All healing magic used the fifth element, which was strange to Justin. 

“If there is a shared consciousness out there, that would explain inherited memories too, like how people are afraid of snakes but they’ve never seen snakes. Hmm.”

“Yeah, it’s interesting.”

Across the table from him, Marty snorted. “You know, one of these days you’re going to actually have a conversation with me instead of just grunting every few minutes so you can pretend you’re listening when I talk.” 

Justin looked up from his book at Vincent’s other apprentice. Marty had already been here when Justin had arrived, and he was farther along in study than Justin. But Justin was a quick learner and he was catching up. He was a short-haired kid with western blood in him somewhere that lend him darker skin and longer features. He was cute, which Justin had only noticed a few days ago. “Time is fake, perception is shared and we’re all afraid of snakes. I was listening. Maybe one of these days you’ll stop talking long enough for me to do more than grunt at you.” 

Marty looked at him. “You make it sound like I talk all the time.” 

Justin looked back. “When I got here eight months ago, you said “Hi, I’m Marty, nice to meet you,’ and then started telling me about climbing plants and you haven’t stopped chattering since. I think you took a breath sometime around new year’s, but you haven’t even gotten to the part of your introduction where you ask what my name is. Hi, I’m Justin.” 

Marty blinked. “Did. Was that a joke? Did you just make a joke? Oh, my God. Master Vincent! Justin is making jokes! I think he’s dying!” 

Justin rolled his eyes and went back to his book. Obviously he wasn’t going to be in the mood to chatter all day and make jokes and have fun. Justin wasn’t here to have fun. Justin was here because he’d killed his mother and needed not to get arrested and hung. 

They’d told him that after they’d let him go. He could train in magic with Vincent, but if he got into any trouble or if anything happened while he was here, it was back to the gallows for him. So he kept quiet, studied magic, and didn’t get into trouble. And let Marty chat at him. 

“A pity that wouldn’t make the house any quieter,” Vincent grumbled from the doorway, checking up on them. “At least one of you seems to be studying. As usual.” 

“I study!” Marty said, defensive. “I’m just taking a break.” 

“For how long, lad?”

Marty went quiet, so Justin piped up. “I think he started just after breakfast? He’ll probably finish his break around bedtime, I think.” 

“Oh, shut it, you,” Marty said, glaring at Justin. “Go back to being all grunty and noncommunicative.” 

Justin just shrugged and went back to his book, then remembered Vincent was standing in the doorway and he looked up again, flipping back to a page he’d marked before. “I have a question.” 

“Ask away, Justin,” Vincent said, coming into the room proper and setting some papers on his desk under the window. 

“Why does the fifth element vanish sometimes?” He held up a diagram illustrating the Elements, and the middle one had gaps in it. “Where does it go? The Elements are supposed to be everywhere.”

“Ah. The dominant theory at present is that it disappears where it intersects with the Pillars used by mages,” Vincent said. “Not that anyone likes to admit this, but our powers, despite being different, are not that distant from one another. And some have always suggested that perhaps the Elements and the Pillars overlap one another, you see.” 

“Oh.” Justin exhaled, fiddling with the fifth element again. “So right…here,” he said, letting himself resonate with the Element just where it vanished for a second. “There’s a Pillar there.” 

“Possibly. The other theory is that the fifth element exists on a plane slightly distant from the other four, and is therefore not entirely able to be apprehended by us.” 

Justin nodded, wondering about that. The more he read about wizardry, the more he was sure that the fifth element should really better be called the first element. But he didn’t want to say that out loud and be wrong. 

Vincent picked up his bag and turned to face the two of them. “Come. I want the two of you to practice healing spells.” 

“Where are we going?” Marty asked, hopping up. 

“To the local hospital. There are any number of people there who could use healing, and it’s what our power is for. Follow me, don’t dawdle.” 

Justin went with them, listening to Marty ask millions of questions about diseases and injuries and herbs and poisons and venomous animals and everything else, and he smiled a little to himself as he went. 

\---

“Master Vincent?” Justin said, knocking on the doorframe late at night. “You wanted to see me?”

Vincent nodded, looking up from something at his desk. “Yes, come in, Justin.” 

Justin did, taking a seat in front of him, nervous. He couldn’t remember Vincent ever asking to speak with him alone at night before, not in the whole year and a half that he’d been here. “What is it?”

“I’m going to have you take the initiate’s exam next week when Marty does, Justin.” 

Justin frowned. They were travelling out of Pelican Bay in a week for that and because Vincent had to pass off some powerful artefact he was guarding to another wizard for safety. “But why? He’s much farther ahead in his training than I am.” 

“He is,” Vincent agreed. “But you’re a fast study, and you’ve a natural head for magic. Normally with people who are self-taught, we have to spend months teaching them not to do everything they taught themselves, but you had very little problems with your technique, and you unlearned everything I wanted you to very quickly. I think you’ll pass the exam, which will give you access to a lot of additional material that I’m not allowed to show you at present.” Vincent smiled. “And there’s this.” He held up the papers he’d been looking at.

Justin blushed, recognizing them. “Oh. Those…those are just my notes, sir, I don’t…there’s nothing in them worth looking at…” He hadn’t realized he’d left them out in the open. 

“On the contrary. This spell work here is very impressive, I think you’d find it much more efficient than most conventional healing magic. Not to mention this.” Vincent smiled at him a little wryly, holding up another page. “I don’t recall teaching you any combat magic.” 

Justin blushed again. “Just…in case.” He didn’t figure he’d ever need it. Justin kept up his skills in fighting, in acrobatics, in knifework, even in dancing. But he didn’t need them anymore, not here. He was…stable, here. He could stay here, and just be Justin. He wasn’t in danger of having to leave, having to change his name. And he didn’t want to. 

Vincent nodded, shuffling to the last few pages, which Justin winced on seeing. “Of course this is the crux of all your theorizing.” 

“I was just thinking on paper, that’s all,” Justin insisted. “I know it’s all crazy.” 

“Not at all. I think the speculations you’re making here about the fifth element are intriguing. Potentially even groundbreaking.” Vincent looked down at the paper for a moment. “Your handwriting is appalling, but it’s nice to see that you’re bad at something. But your ideas are sound, and I think you will benefit from having access to certain materials after passing the initiate’s exam. You know at that stage you can request books from any Circle-affiliated wizard, correct?”

Justin nodded. “I’ve…been thinking I’d like to read Cartien’s treatise on projections and emanations, but there aren’t any copies in Pelican Bay…”

“No, it’s a rare book and I’ve never had any use for it. Pass your exam, however, and we could get you a copy. I think…”

“Sir?” Justin asked, as Vincent just…stopped talking. 

Vincent just sat there, staring. His mouth hung open, his eyes were unfocused, and one side of his face dropped. And he fell forward. “Vincent!”

Shaking overtook Vincent, and Justin laid him on the ground, touching on the Elements quickly as he put together his best healing spell and applied it. “It’s okay,” he promised. “You’ll be okay, I can…damn it!” The spell didn’t work, nothing happened. So, with a glance at his papers, Justin tried the one he’d come up with yesterday and never tested, one which theoretically should be able to heal almost anything without much…

It didn’t work either, the matrix fell apart and the fifth element wouldn’t adhere to Fire and Wind when he tried it. “Damn it, damn it! I can…” There. He got it to work, just like he’d thought. It felt so easy, so much more natural than other healing spells, he could feel the power coming into him so gently, but with such force that he…

But it was too late. Vincent was dead in front of him, and there was nothing he could do. Justin looked down at him, vision swimming with tears. “Damn, damn, no…I’m so sorry…”

What was he going to tell Marty? How was he going to explain this? How was he going…how was he going to explain this to the city guard? 

If anything happened while he was here, Justin was going to go back to the gallows. They were going to think that he’d done this, that he’d killed Vincent. They were going to arrest him. The guard hated him, he knew that. Every time they came they glared at him, just waiting for him to trip up. They were going to kill him. 

Justin hadn’t come all this way to be hung for something that wasn’t his fault.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Vincent, and he got up, collected his papers, and left the office. He gathered his things quickly, just some clothes and his other notes, throwing them all in a bag. He had to go. He had to leave, and he had to leave Justin here. 

On the way out he looked in on Marty, hugging his pillow as he snored. A friend, a real one. “Sorry,” he whispered to Marty, and he turned away and left him there in the house, alone. 

\---

“I’d like to offer you a job.”

Ford looked up at the thin, oiled man who was watching him. “I have a job,” he said, cleaning his knives. “And this area is performers only.” 

“Yes, I know. I saw your performance earlier. It was leagues ahead of anything else this circus has to offer.”

“Thanks,” Ford said, shrugging. It was a small circus, they only had two acrobats. The other girl was all right, but this guy was right that she wasn’t the best. Ford also had a cute little knife throwing show and a tightrope routine that the crowds liked. He wasn’t changing the face of wizardry in the world, but he was doing okay and nobody was looking too hard at him except as a performer. 

Except this guy, apparently. “You’re a skill acrobat, obviously talented with those weapons, and I suspect a very good fighter if you want to be.” 

“You could tell all that just from watching the circus, huh?” Ford asked the guy. “Who are you, anyway?” 

“My name is Dominic. I have a number of young people who need training in the kinds of skills that you possess, and I think you’d be a very good teacher for them.”

“You don’t know me.” Ford stood up, putting his knives away. “You don’t know anything about me. I’m not a good teacher.”

“Have you ever tried?”

Ford looked away. “No.”

“How much does this circus pay you, out of curiosity?”

“Enough.” 

“I can pay you a good deal more than enough.” 

Ford snorted. “And all I need to do is pretend it’s not creepy that you have a bunch of kids who you want to have martial training? No thanks.” 

“It’s not as nefarious as it seems. There is a group of orphans in town whose guardian recently passed away. I want them to have the skills necessary to survive, that’s all.” 

“You don’t need acrobatic prowess to survive,” Ford told him. “You need to know how to feed yourself.” 

“And how are these children to do that if they are easily overpowered by everyone who wishes to hurt them? Speaking as an orphan myself, trust me when I say the world is not kind to people in their situation.” 

“Yeah.” Ford knew that. He sighed. “Not interested.” 

“Do me a favour,” Dominic said. “Simply come and meet them before you make up your mind.” 

Shifting from foot to foot, Ford thought about it. The idea of making a lot more money did appeal to him. He didn’t dislike the circus or anything—he’d joined it because it was something he knew he could do, something he understood. But at the same time it was reminding him a lot of his childhood, of his mom, and it made him a little antsy. “Fine. I’ll come meet them. No promises on anything else.”

“That’s all I ask.” Dominic smiled. “May I get your name, young man?”

Ford shook his head. “If I end up taking the gig I’ll give you one then.” He smiled at Dominic. “See you tomorrow.” 

\---

“Stop showing me where your knives are.” 

“I’m not.” 

“Yes, you are,” Alec said to the kid. “Every time you think about reaching for one you put your hand over your pocket. You’re showing me where they are that way.” 

Patrick was a chubby little boy whose face squished when he got annoyed, and he was a pain in Alec’s ass. “You already know where they are because you saw me put them on. And even if you didn’t, I can’t well pull them out of my shirt without putting my hand there, now can I? You’re expecting me to do the impossible, and that’s hardly fair when I’ve already got three different kinds of ghost hanging on me expecting even worse. It seems like the least you can do show some human solidarity and not expect the impossible of me in this trying time, you know?”

Alec just looked at him. “What are you, like three years old?”

“I’m nine!” Patrick said, puffing out his chest. “I think. Age is a bit of a testy subject since I don’t know when I was born, being an orphan and all, but a nice old lady on the side of the road told me I was nine a while ago, so I’m going with that until a better option presents itself…woah!”

Alec had tossed a knife between his legs. “See?”

“No, I didn’t! Do it again!”

So Alec did it again. “Woah!” Patrick repeated. 

“Where are my knives hidden?”

“I…don’t know.” He was looking up at Alec in mild awe. “Teach me how to do that!”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, dumbass.” Alec shook his head. “I want you to practice drawing quickly. Don’t think about it, just let your hand go there and leave. Make me look somewhere else while you’re doing it.”

“But…how?”

“Sleight of hand. I’ll show you that part later,” Alec promised, retrieving his knives. “Just focus on getting faster for now.” 

“Sleight of hand?” Patrick asked, squishing his face again. “But I need my hands for the knives, and…” 

“Sleight of hand is about more than the hands, kid.” 

“But then it’s not sleight of…”

“Just go practice.”

Patrick nodded, and he scurried away to do just that, still muttering about inappropriate embodiment in metaphors. 

Nine years old, Alec thought. Fuck. What the hell did Dominic want these kids for? But the money was really good and Alec figured this way he was training them not to get hurt. It didn’t make it okay, but it made it easier to pretend that it was. 

“Ow!” 

Alec turned, saw little Jacob bleeding. He sighed, went over. “What’d you do?” he asked. 

“Wasn’t my fault,” Jacob grumbled, holding his hand. “Iggy kicked me.” 

Ignatius was standing there, knife in hand, looking upset. “I thought he’d move the other way…”

“You never see the kicks coming,” Alec sighed, taking Jacob’s hand in his and healing the wound. “You have to keep an eye on your opponent’s feet when you fight, kid.” 

“I’ve only got two eyes!” Jacob protested. “How am I supposed to watch his eyes, his hands, my surroundings and his feet all at once?”

“The same way I’m watching all of you at once,” Alec told him, letting go of the fifth element. He smiled at Ignatius and then stepped back. In the corner, Patrick was practicing his draws. Roberta and Callie and Robin were tumbling. Cyrus was walking on his hands and Dee and Matthias were sparring behind Jacob and Ignatius. They were coming along, all of them. “Now do whatever you did again, I want to see.” 

“I thought you were watching all of us?” Ignatius asked. “Doesn’t that mean you saw?”

“Listen, smartass…”

“Alec said a bad word.”

They were so fucking young. “I’m about to say more of them if you two don’t start trying to kill each other. Let’s go, come on.” 

\---

“What’d you do with them?”

Dominic shook his head, unperturbed that Alec had just charged into his house. He’d gone to see the kids and they were missing. 

“The latter parts of their training are better accomplished outside of High Haven,” Dominic told him, “I have had them moved.” 

“I could have gone with them.” 

Another shake of Dominic’s head. “Education is always better with as many different teachers as possible, is it not? Don’t fret—it’s not a failing of your teaching, which was impeccable. So much so that they’ve graduated already.” 

Alec scowled. “You don’t get to decide that. There was still a lot that they could have learned.” 

Cyrus had the potential to be a really good acrobat. Like, really, really good, better than Alec. And Matthias had a natural charisma that made it easy for him to charm people, if he could stop sneezing for two seconds. Callie could beat all the other kids with her eyes closed. With a little more training…Alec had been teaching Roberta numbers and measures, and helping Patrick get over his weird fear of birds (with no luck so far), and he was pretty sure, like mostly sure, that Ignatius was going to manifest power as a wizard in another year or so, he had several of the signs. He’d…

He’d gotten close to them, to all of them. He liked them. He worried about them. 

And Dominic had taken them away. 

“There is always more to be learned. But I need them to learn a great deal that they can’t learn here. As I said, this is no sleight against you, just practicality.” 

It didn’t feel like a sleight. It felt like Dominic was trying to keep the kids away from someone who cared about them. And that was probably practical. If he wanted them to be automatons that did his bidding. “What are you going to use those kids for?”

“They’re orphans. I intend to provide them with structure, guidance, and gainful employment.” Dominic gave Alec a hard look. “Surely you can understand the value of those things.” 

“You’re intending to turn them into spies and assassins,” Alec accused. “What they need is a family, not a guildmaster.” 

Dominic snorted a quiet laugh. “And you should like to be that family, I assume?”

Alec looked away. “I care a lot more about them than you do, obviously.” 

“And that is my problem. I cannot have them growing too attached to someone who was always going to be transient. I know your type. You were never going to stay here permanently, and the longer they stayed with you, the harder it would be on them when you eventually left. That’s why I didn’t tell you I was having them moved.” 

“You…”

Dominic looked down at the table, at a sizeable bag of coin. “There’s a bonus there for you, as thanks for your work. I would appreciate your discretion in this matter.” 

“Like hell you’re going to get…”

“Unless you’d like the Pelican Bay guard to find out where you are, that is, Justin.” 

Alec paled. “How did you find out about…” There was no way Dominic could have known about that.

“I have many resources. Now, please take your payment and go. Your work is appreciated.” 

Alec stood there for a moment and seethed. There was…nothing he could do. Because he was a coward at heart, and he and Dominic both knew it. “You…you’re going to pay for this.” 

“I already have,” Dominic said, as Alec took the money. “Goodbye, Alec.”

Alec wanted to throw it at him, to tell Dominic to go hang himself, to scream. But all he said, shaking, before he left, was “That’s not my name.” 

\---

Lucian was just slightly drunk. He’d only had a few drinks, just enough to make him a little dizzy, and he was sitting there at the table in an inn somewhere trying to figure out how come it wasn’t possible to use wizard magic to teleport. Mages and sorcerers could both do it, and so could witches, but the Elements couldn’t be combined to make a functioning teleportation spell, and Lucian was absolutely certain that it was the fifth element’s fault. 

“Fucking thing,” Lucian muttered at his drawing of it, a spell diagram that would never work that he’d drawn on the table. “It can’t be that hard, mages do it with not even three powers, and sorcerers do it with two. Witches aren’t even real practitioners and they still manage to teleport. I’m a fucking prodigy, let me leave Bethel’s Frontier without using the gate, damn you.” 

“Do you always talk to the table?” A large, bulky man had come up to his table and was standing there with two mugs of beer in hand. 

“Only when it’s being an asshole,” Lucian told the man, eyeing him warily. “Is one of those for me?”

“Yep,” the man said, sitting down without being invited. 

“I want both of them if I’m going to have to talk to you to earn it.” 

The man looked at him, laughed, and slid both mugs over to Lucian. “Have it your way. Rumour is that you’ve got some experience teaching kids to fight.” 

Lucian frowned, fingering Fire. “What rumour?” Where did people keep hearing this shit? 

The man shrugged. “I’m going to have some kids I need trained to fight.” 

“Train them yourself. I’m not doing it again.” He wasn’t going through that again. He’d tried to find Dominic’s kids, for a year and a half before giving up. It had been fruitless. They were all just…gone. 

“I haven’t even told you how much I’ll pay you.” 

“I don’t care. I don’t want money.” 

Another snort. “There’s this guy in Merket named Theodore. Likes to buy little slave boys and rape them until he gets bored with them. My boss wants him dead.” 

“Then your boss should kill him.” Lucian said, making a face. He could already see where this was going. “Without involving a bunch of kids. No. No, don’t think I don’t get what you’re on about here. You can’t do that. You can’t sneak a kid into his house to kill him. You can’t tell a kid to get raped to kill this guy. Just kill him yourself.” 

“I would, but the boss has specific instructions. It’s got to be a slave who kills him, and it’s got to be one of his slaves, one of his victims.” The man leaned in. “Theodore’s not the main target, see.” 

“Who is?”

“Not a person. Slavery. The whole institution of slavery. Killing this guy is just one part of a plan to get slavery outlawed in the north, finally.” 

Lucian frowned. “Slavery is an ingrained institution up north. It’s part of their culture. They cling to it. They use it to distinguish themselves from the southerners. And I don’t care about slavery. It’s not my issue, it never has been.” 

Was the fact that slavery had never affected him a good enough reason not to care about it? Not really, and Lucian knew that. If he could be involved in putting a stop to something he knew was wrong, didn’t he have an obligation to help?

“Doesn’t matter whether you care about it. People are getting hurt and killed because of it every day. And they’ll stop clinging to it once the rebellion starts, don’t worry.”

“Rebellion?”

The man shrugged. “Can’t tell you more until you’re onboard for sure.” 

Lucian snorted. “Right. And you think I’ll join on to a plan that involves getting some kid raped?”

“There’s going to be collateral damage no matter what. And this is happening no matter what.” The man smiled. “The question is whether you want to help mitigate that collateral damage or not.” 

Lucian looked at him. “Fuck you. Fuck you for trying to guilt me into working for you. And fuck you for being right. Just…fuck you.”

“Is that a yes?”

Lucian sighed, downed one of the beers all at once. “I’ll come and see your operation. Fuck. This is a bad idea, it’s such a bad idea.” But his whole life was nothing but a succession of bad ideas, so what was the damned difference? Maybe this time, this one time, he could help instead of making things worse. Maybe just this one time. 

“You won’t be saying that when it works. I’m Chance.” 

“I’m…”

“No real name,” Chance told him, holding up a hand. “Safer that way.” 

Lucian snorted. Whatever rumours existed about him weren’t that good, obviously. “Fine. Call me Darwin.”


End file.
